3768. HABANERA TO THE COLUMNAR INCH

HABENERA TO THE 

COLUMNAR INCH

Sandpaper headings and the stucco'd old

cathedral, now standing a sentinel watch

for nothing on the borrowed edge of an ancient

humid avenue. The people are standing near

the light which won't work  -  sooty cars from

1966 are making the turn, taxi's headers on

their roofs. Cuban musicians are staggering

their delineations down Rampopa Boulevard,

while two soldiers are toying with a white-laced

girl. I listen in as she comments, in a very fast

tongue, that their 'rifles aren't large enough' to

do their 'paltry manhoods justice.' Be it all

as it may, that's what I think I understood.

-

The oasis behind glass, the flower-seller

with glass vases, soiled daisies sticking out

from an oil-based elixir : I realize where I am

but not how I ever arrived. Everything happens

so fast in an air-born world. From goons to

toy soldiers, a teddy-bear with a child attached

is flying through the air. Smoke at the end of

the block, the distant harbor everywhere.